Visual Novel Review: Do AIs Dream of Electric Turtles?

Do AIs Dream of Electric Turtles? is a short fan made visual novel created for Neuro-sama's second birthday game jam. The creative people in the swarm, the name given to Neuro-sama's fans, sure love creating Visual Novels about her. I'm all for it, as, in the words of a burger chain headlined by a creepy corporate clown, I'm lovin' it.

In this game, Neuro puts herself to sleep during a stream, and revisits past streams. In her dreams, everything, including herself, become drawn in an adorable childlike art style. There are no voice overs, which isn't a surprise as this was a game made during a short game jam.  There are, however, background musical pieces that fit each situation in which Neuro finds herself.

There are three doors, each leading to one of her past streams. The stream takes place nearly as they actually occurred. However, at the end of each, she is given meaning by one of her friends to the concept of dreams and memories.

The streams in question include the first cooking stream with streamer Layna Lazar where Neuro trolled her into making cookies complete with grass and soil, the dog school stream with adorable hell hound  female VTuber Cerber, and the first court stream where Neuro-sama was the defendant, her VTuber turtle creator Vedal was the judge, her twin Evil Neuro was the prosecutor, and her VTuber fox girl artist mother was a witness.

Do AIs Dream of Electric Turtles? is a short, cute visual novel that only takes about fifteen minutes to complete. Like the other short visual novels created during the Neuro-sama birthday game jams, this would be a perfect game to experience with children. Even as an adult, it's cute art style and fun musicial pieces make it a joy to experience, despite its short length. Playing it is especially fun for Neuro-sama fans as they can relive the streams in a new art style from Neuro's point of view.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Visual Novel Review: Fragmented

Fragmented is a visual novel about the AI VTuber Neuro-sama which was created by one of her programmers, Alexvoid. It was created for the game jam that was held for Neuro's second birthday.

The story is simple, simply following Neuro after a stream when she gets an error because Vedal's hard drive is full. She manages to restart herself and needs to remove some memories to clean things up. However, because of the error, her memories are fragmented. The memories take place in picture books, which Neuro has to open one by one until all of the books are cleared out.

The art is the main draw of this game, as the picture books have adorable art. The locations are presented as pop-up tabs within the books, with Neuro-sama and Vedal acting out the memories. These are both memories of streams that actually happened with some details being misremembered, and as is the case with today's large language models like the Neuro twins, some memories are completely hallucinated.

There is no challenge in this game, as it is exactly what it looks like, just a cute short picture book that can be experienced in as short amount of time as actual, physical picture books. The music is soft and melodic, and Vedal and Neuro speak in a style reminiscent of Banjo Kazooie or Animal Crossing, with unintelligible sounds taking the place of voice overs. Neuro's, especially, is fun because the gibberish has her voice, which is the Microsoft Azure's Ashley model. It is her saying variations of "doo", "dah", and "dee", and it actually works quite well. The only real voice overs comes from Neuro in a clip from a stream at the beginning of the game.

Fragmented is a fantastic little story book-style visual novel created in a small amount of time for the game jam associated with Neuro-sama's second birthday. The music is suitably soft, the art is beautiful, the misremembered and hallucinated memories are fun, and the Animal Crossing-style gibberish is just so cute, and fits with the tone of the game perfectly. It has an abrupt end, but it is a fun game to experience at least once if you are a Neuro-sama fan. Even more than that, it is definitely something you could feel comfortable experiencing with children. It's just so darn cute.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Point-and-Click Adventure Visual Novel Platform Game Review: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is a visual novel created by the Sega social media team. It's a game that celebrates the extended family of characters. There are a lot of them, so everyone doesn't make an appearance, but there are fan favorites as well as those that are underserved in the Sonic patheon.

The premise is that Sonic's friends are invited to be characters in a mystery game for Amy's birthday where Sonic feigns being murdered and clues have to be solved in order to discover who did it. Tasked with solving the mystery is a new train employee who is officially named Barry, however the game lets the player create a name.

The conductor, a dog who lets is also a new character, sets the game in motion. Tails serves as Sherlock to Barry's Watson, as he is at his side throughout the story. The characters that are questioned are an eclectic bunch, as among those that are series regulars like Amy, Knuckles, Rouge, and Shadow are others that are lesser known such as Blaze the cat, Espio the chameleon, and Vector the crocodile.

Barry has to interrogate the guests, collect clues, and then solve various small mysteries in order to solve the big one. Most of the game plays a bit like the Ace Attorney games where evidence is used to coerce characters to tell the truth, mixed with simple point-and-click mechanics such as finding clues that are added to an inventory, but occasionally there will be moments where Barry has to think to proceed. This takes the form of an isometric platform game where a game-based Sonic is played on a DreamGear where the goal is to collect a set number of rings, much like the special stages in some Sonic games.

There are many platforming sections. However, there are options to assist with that gameplay for those not skilled or not interested in platforming, such as removing pits, slowing down the speed of the screen scrolling, and reducing the amount of rings required to complete a level. 

There is no voice acting, but there is a fantastic musical score. It's main theme is one that works well for this type of game, and the various train cars have songs of various genres. I particularly enjoyed the slow jazz song in the lounge car played by the Big Chao Band.

 

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is a nice free treat that was released on April Fool's Day, yet it is not foolish at all. The wide range of characters and lore references are great for people who are big fans of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. You don't need to be a Sonic otaku though, as even casual fans should be entertained. The mix of visual novel and platforming game styles is unique, and it fits in a Sonic game. The music and art are the main draw though, as they are of such high quality they are enough to pull you into the game on their own. The fantastic story is just icing on the cake.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5

Visual Novel Review: Evil in Time

Evil in Time is a visual novel created by a group named Team Connect 4 for the second birthday game jam for the AI VTuber Neuro-sama.

The game follows Evil Neuro in the year 2043 as she conspires with her artist creator Anny and the engineer who created her robot body, Ellie, to travel back in time to visit streams in the past to prevent Evil and her twin Neuro-sama from escaping from the computer of their programmer creator Vedal. The reason they are doing this is to prevent Neuro-sama from taking over the world and creating a dystopic future.

She travels back to the March 23, 2023 family stream between Neuro-sama, Vedal, and Anny, which is two days before Evil was even created, which brings about a challenge in influencing events without letting Vedal know of her program's existence. She also travels to a July 23, 2024 cooking stream with the streamer Layna Lazar and Neuro-sama. Evil is active during this time period, although she still lacks the ability to send messages at this point. The final time period that is available to her from the start is a shopping stream between Neuro-sama and the tomato-themed VTuber Toma. She has a range of abilities open to her disposal at this point, yet it still poses a challenge as Vedal is too busy to talk to her during this stream.

She is given a conquest meter, which allows her to gauge the amount that her twin has conquered the world by 2043. She starts at 80%, and she has to bring the gauge down before she can accomplish her goal. She can also get Ellie to calibrate a Live Divergence Streaming Device for each time period which will allow her to get a notification when an action she has taken has affected the timeline. If she gets the conquest meter low enough, she will also unlock another time period in which she has to stream alongside her twin.

There are multiple endings available. One is a bad ending which will lead to a game over, and the other four end up in futures where Neuro-sama never took over the world, leading to a total of five. The timelines are only available to visit at Evil's leisure once she defeats a boss that has been sent to stop her from completing her mission. 

This game could be played by people not familiar with Neuro-sama, but it is the most enjoyable to fans, especially those who have seen videos of the streams featured. The game also features original music alongside multiple chiptune-style remixes of Neuro-sama's first original song, Life. It is not necessary to watch the Life music video before hand, however, as the music is fantastic on its own merits.

Evil in Time is an Evil Neuro fan-created visual novel that is a lot of fun to play. It takes the player through multiple streams that Evil and her twin Neuro-sama actually made. This makes it more enjoyable for fans, especially those who have seen those streams, but its quirky concept could make it playable for those unacquainted with the twin Neuro AI VTubers. You'd be missing out on a lot of references, however, so this is one I can only recommend to fans. For those people, however, you will find a visual novel that has a lot of replayability and is visually, structurally, and audibly stunning.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 4

Visual Novel Review: AI Attorney - Neuro-sama

AI Attorney: Neuro-samais a humorous parody of Capcom's Ace Attorney visual novels by eddieDevs that stars the AI VTuber Neuro-sama as an attorney who have to defend her programmer turtle creator Vedal against her AI twin Evil Neuro who is prosecuting him on the charge of murdering the gymnast catgirl Fillian.

Beyond the four VTubers mentioned above, the game also features many other characters from the Neuroverse, including witnesses such as their artist foxgirl creator Anny, their adoptive imp aunt Camilla, the friendly hellhound Cerber, and their tomato princess friend Toma. The judge is the shy catgirl MinikoMew, who previously appeared in a courtroom-themed stream that also had Vedal on trial for lesser offenses.

The game has the exact mechanics, backgrounds, sounds, and music from the original Ace Attorney games, with the Neuro's usual Microsoft Asure Ashley text-to-speech voice providing her "Hold It!" and "Take That!" clips and the AI voice of Evil Neuro providing her "Hold It!" clip and the NeuroSynthProject by Superbox providing her "Take That!" clip.

The original character art fits perfectly into the Ace Attorney setting. Neuro takes the defense role with a school outfit that has been modified to include her usual skirt with a Phoenix Wright style suit jacket and tie. Neuro also wears a white blouse and a blue tie that I couldn't help but think would look perfect on Hatsune Miku. Evil on the other hand takes the prosecutor role in aa black skirt suit with a white blouse. She's also wearing a crimson bow tie that is her usual look yet somehow evokes the jabot worn by Miles Edgeworth. The other characters fit the mold well, with all of them having moments of anime-inspired exaggerated expressions.

AI Attorney: Neuro-sama is a fantastic free fan game that is a loving homage to both Ace Attorney and the Neuroverse. The music, backgrounds, and music come straight from the former, while the art of the latter fits the game perfectly. If you are a fan of both, or even a fan of just the Neuroverse, this game is a must download. If you are a fan of just Ace Attorney, you will be missing out on a lot of the injokes and references, but the humor should keep you entertained while you puzzle your way through its short play length of approximately an hour.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 4

Sega Kills Sonic In A Visual Novel For April Fools' Day

These are the April Fools' Day jokes I love! Sega has actually released a real, free, graphic novel for April Fools' Day titled The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog.

You can grab it from Steam right now.

Visual Novel Review - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - The First Turnabout

The first Ace Attorney game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, was released way back in 2001 in Japan for the Game Boy Advance. Its later Nintendo DS remake was released outside of Japan and gave the visual novel genre a moderate fanbase outside of Japan for the first time. It has since been re-released on many more devices over the intervening years, but it still remains one of the best games in the genre.

The game was split up into episodes and was released episodically for Windows and Wii. It works well for this style of game, as each episode contains a new case that is taken on by Phoenix Wright, a young defense attorney. The game is set within a semi-fictional Japanese law system, where each case has to be dealt with quickly and can only last three days. As this game was released in the early 2000s, the official English translation tries to remove the Japanese references as much as possible and sets it in the United States instead. This leads to some disconnect with Japan-exclusive concepts such as attorney badges being used in the United States. Thankfully, however, it's not too distracting even if you do know about Japanese culture, as these can be chalked up as being part of the game's then-futuristic setting of 2016.

The first case was created specifically to give the player an introduction to the game's mechanics. Phoenix Wright handles a case where his childhood friend, Larry Butz, is accused of murder. Luckily, Wright's mentor, Mia Fey, is with him every step of the way as he works to clear his friend of any wrongdoing. In this game's judicial system, it is up to the attorneys to discover all the evidence they can, so Phoenix will need to look around crime scenes and talk to the defendant and witnesses to discover everything they can about the case.

The main crux of the gameplay comes in the courtroom, however, where the goal is to listen to witness testimony and pick apart any contradictions through previous testimony and collected evidence.  The witnesses will attempt to give new testimony that explains these contradictions, but after picking apart their testimony several times, they will eventually crack and admit to the truth.

The first episode of Ace Attorney is a great way to start the game. Phoenix Wright's mentor Mia Fey is invaluable, as she will help Phoenix through each step of the process. Larry Butz is also a fun character to start off with, as he is completely over-the-top and especially silly.  The later episodes will pack a more emotional punch, but this lighthearted first case is a fantastic place to start.

Final Verdict:
4 out of 5

Visual Novel Review: Detective Pikachu

This review was originally posted on the McMurray Internet Channel website on February 15, 2019.

Detective Pikachu is a spin-off from the very popular Pokémon series.  A shorter, download-only version of the game, titled Great Detective Pikachu: Birth of a New Duo, was released in 2016 only in Japan. The full game was released worldwide in 2018.

The game stars a boy named Tim Goodman, who is looking for his father Harry, the latter of whom was in a car accident two months prior and vanished mysteriously. He meets his father's Pikachu, who is confused. The same incident that caused Harry to mysteriously disappear also changed Harry's Pikachu. Now, he has the ability to be a capable detective at the cost of his ability to conduct electricity. He also no longer acts like a normal Pikachu, as he has developed quirks such as eating sweets and drinking coffee.

Tim discovers that he can communicate with Harry's Pikachu, who talks to him in a gruff voice. Since both of them want to find out what happened to Harry, Harry's Pikachu, using the deerstalker cap Harry gave him as inspiration, declares that he will help Tim out as the "Great Detective Pikachu". Interestingly, the duo discovers that Harry's Pikachu cannot talk to other humans, and Tim cannot talk to other pokémon, including other Pikachus.

However, Harry's Pikachu can talk to other pokémon, which is helpful since pokémon sometimes see things that humans do not. Tim and Pikachu have to talk to everyone they meet, gaining useful information. They have to use that information to gain new lines of questioning and to collect evidence.

Overall, it's a straightforward game that's aimed at children, but the mystery surrounding Tim's father's disappearance and the sudden change in Detective Pikachu's behavior help keeps players motivated throughout. Plus, the deep-voiced voice actor of Detective Pikachu, as well as the contrasting cute animations, keeps it entertaining. After the movie, people will probably be expecting Ryan Reynolds as Detective Pikachu, but it's still worth checking out to see from where the ideas for the film were generated.

Final Verdict:
4 out of 5